Rusted Gears
by Chemical-Rival
Summary: Y'know, falling for a clown animatronic wasn't exactly in Belle's plans. But it happened anyway. (human Ballora x animatronic Circus Baby)
1. Chapter 1: Welcome to the Show

"Could you guys please slow down?"

"No way, dude. Go faster!"

Belle groaned as she watched her friends speed ahead of her in the parking lot.

Earlier in the day, Belle had foolishly suggested that they go out rather than hang out in her house.

Eddie, her big, tall, shaggy looking friend immediately got excited. He suggested they go to some kid's pizzeria chain.

Belle wasn't super fond of the idea. She didn't like those types of places, they were always too loud.

But then Yenn, who usually hated places with lots of people noise and would disappear at the sight of it, actually said it was a good idea. Belle was shocked at that but learned he was only in it for the food. So, not surprising.

She then turned her best friend Leslie, looking for backup. But he gave one of his toothy lopsided grins and uttered a "Sounds like a plan, my dudes!"

Belle's friends were actual children sometimes.

Not that she usually minded.

Who knew? Maybe she'd actually end up enjoying herself.

Her three friends rushed through the door.

She continued to trail behind the others at a more reasonable pace.

By the time she got inside, they had all spread around the establishment.

Not surprising, really.

Another thing not surprising was that the place was indeed loud and fairly packed. Both children and adults alike roamed around in what seemed like packs.

Belle's eyes scanned around the restaurant searching for her friends.

She spotted Leslie behind the glass of the arcade, his stark white hair stood out under the blacklights like a sore thumb, so he wasn't hard to spot.

Eddie's head was visibly poking out of the ball pit.

And then there was Yenn, who Belle spotted over by the booths eating pizza.

She decided on joining Yenn since the booths were the least crowded part.

"Hello." She greeted.

"Hey, man." Yenn greeted back through a mouthful of pizza. He motioned to the slices that remained untouched. "Want a slice?"

"No thank you. I just wanted to go somewhere that wasn't crowded."

"Understandable."

They shared some mindless chatter with one another, and Belle casually observed the room around her a bit better.

The room itself was fairly plain; black and white checkered floors and blue-gray walls with a few posters haphazardly hung up. The only really remarkable thing was the stage, which automatically drew your attention with its blinding spotlights and actually vibrant colors.

Even more attention drawing than that what was on the stage.

Three animatronics stood on it, made mostly of sleek white and gray metal that appeared to shine under the spotlights above. One of the more interesting things Belle took note of was how their bodies were split by segments. Especially on their faces, where the dark splits between the plates were more prominent.

On the left of the stage there was a tall bear accented with a purplish-pink color, and a black bow-tie and top hat. His icy blue eyes seemed to carry more emotion than plastic eyes should. In one hand, he gripped a microphone that adorned that same purplish-pink color he did, and the other was covered by a little blue rabbit puppet with a red bowtie.

On the right stood a fox animatronic that adorned gray and pink alongside the white. The only thing she wore was a little red bowtie. He sang with bear and rabbit in a voice that was significantly more robotic and grainy than theirs, tail swishing back and forth behind him methodically like the arm of a metronome.

The movements between the two were a little less robotic abrupt in comparison to other animatronics Belle had seen. More human-like, but still very mechanical. Sometimes the jolt of their movement would cause the faceplates to open a little, allowing a small glimpse at the wiring underneath.

In between the two of them stood a short animatronic resembling a clown. Red painted lips, cheeks, and nose were on a face with cartoonishly round green eyes and a stupidly perfect smile. She wore a red and white dress and had hair that was a few shades closer to orange, styled into pigtails. Unlike her animal friends, she did not interact or move. She stood static, one arm by her side, and the other raised slightly with a microphone in hand. Her head dipped down slightly like she was stood asleep with her eyes open.

Belle couldn't stop looking at her for some reason. Her eyes should have been more drawn to the movement of the other two, but for some reason, her eyes remained trained on the clown.

"Cool animatronics, huh?" Yenn asked, noticing her staring.

"Yeah…"

The bear and the fox stopped singing and started to talk with one another.

Well, it was friendly bickering, really.

When they started to get kinda loud the clown sparked to life.

Her eyes flicked on like flashlights, and her faceplates shifted.

She diffused the situation, and then the fox and bear left the stage, starting to roam the restaurant and leaving the clown by herself on the stage.

Her eyes scanned across the room, eventually finding Belle's gaze and seemingly locking onto it.

Belle felt her face start to heat up for some reason. She quickly broke eye contact, standing up an deciding to look for one of her other friends and uttering a 'see you in a few' to Yenn.

She probably shouldn't have been embarrassed by an animatronic catching her staring, but holy fuck she was.

She ended up finding herself near Leslie first, who still stood at the same arcade cabinet, a ridiculously long string of tickets spilling from it.

"Oh my god, are you still going on the first token?"

Leslie tore his eyes away from the screen for a split second to meet Belle's.

"Yeah dude, haven't died once yet. The patterns in this game are so frickin' predictable."

Belle shouldn't have been surprised. If there was anything Leslie was good at, it was math, talking for impressive lengths of time, and video games.

"Impressive."

"Yeah, thanks. What have you been up to?"

"Uh…" Belle awkwardly scratched the back of her neck. "You know, just watching the animatronics perform and stuff." She could still hear the clown singing from across the room, but tried to not let it distract her.

"Oh? I heard the tech in those things is pretty rad. Like, way too advanced to just be used at this place."

Belle glanced through the arcade window and spotted that clown again.

She was strangely drawn to her. She really was.

Was that weird?

Maybe.

"Interesting."

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you guys are enjoying this so far!**

 **And if you couldn't figure it out, Belle is Ballora, Eddie is Ennard, Yenn is Yenndo, and Leslie is Lolbit.**


	2. Chapter 2: Regulars Now, I Guess

He could see her.

He could see her standing at the very back of the room, partially obscured by boxes and loose tangles of wires hanging down from the ceiling. Completely unsuspecting and unaware of the predatory animal creeping up on her.

He moved towards her on all fours, managing not to brush against any of the many objects that littered the room even slightly.

When he was right behind her, inches away from her, he stood up fully. His faceplates opened up slowly as he did so.

And then he grabbed onto her shoulders.

A loud and grating mechanical shriek reverberated from the silver speaker on his chest, filling the entire room.

"Hello, Fox. Nice to see you."

Foxy groaned, letting go of Baby.

"How did that not scare you?"

"You're not as silent as you think you are, you know. I can literally hear the gears in you turning. Plus I could see Bidy staring at you from over my shoulder, you dork."

"You always ruin my fun."

"Sorry. Actually, I'm not."

Foxy let out a rather unconvincing gasp. "How dare you. You're gonna find a strongly worded letter in your Gallery tonight."

"Oh, dear Scott no."

"Oh yes." Foxy casually sat on the desk where Baby was trying to fix a Bidybab's broken arm. "But you're gonna have to worry about that later because I haven't really gotten a chance to speak to you today, since I ended up getting rented for that party."

"Oh, that's why it was quieter."

Foxy lightly punched Baby in the arm.

"Shut up. You're a meanie."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. But anyway, anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

"Not really. Everything was the same level of chaotic as it usually is."

"Oh, lame. Did your new friend show up again?"

Baby looked Foxy with a bemused expression. "My new friend? Who would that be?"

"That girl with the blue hair and glasses that keeps getting dragged in here by her friends."

Oh, her.

Baby had noticed that girl and her friends had pretty much become regulars over the past few weeks. But after they passed through the front doors, the blue-haired girl really seemed to be the only she saw anywhere in the restaurant. Her friends always disappeared off into the back parts of the establishment, which Baby was not obligated to watch over.

Admittedly, she did think the girl was rather pretty.

Baby snorted. "I don't think I can call her my friend, Fox. I've never even spoken to her."

"Well, I think she wants to be your friend. Every time she's in here she's got her eyes trained on you. Just like, completely 100% staring."

"A lot of people stare at me, Fox. They stare at Fred. They stare at you. They stare at all of us. We're robots. And we spend most of our time on a stage performing, where people watch us even more."

"Well…" Foxy started, drawing out the last two letters for an obnoxiously long period of time. "Looks to me like you look at her too, Miss Ringleader Lady."

"I look at everyone." Baby countered. "I'm supposed to make sure none of our customers break any rules or do something stupid, aren't I?"

"Whatever you say."

"Oh, you don't believe me?"

"No, I don't. That's why I responded with 'whatever you say'."

Before Baby could retort, Foxy spoke again.

"I think you ought to talk to her."

"Oh yeah, you know that completely normal situation where an animatronic, who is supposed to perform on stage, free roam around the restaurant giving people directions to the bathroom, saying pre-recorded phrases, or helping parents catch their hyperactive children just comes up and starts a casual conversation with you?"

Foxy rolled his eyes and lightly punched Baby again. "Shut up! You never listen to my advice."

"Probably because the last two times I took advice from you something caught on fire."

"Well, what could possibly catch fire in any situation that this advice could conjure up?"

"I don't know, but last time you said that the ball pit turned into a fire pit. And the ball pit wasn't even involved in the situation before catching fire."

"Then does it really count?" Foxy asked.

Baby gave her a "Yes, yes it does." look before responding. "Look, maybe I'll take your advice. But if I end up being the thing that catches on fire again, I'm gonna be little upset."

"This conversation is giving making my head hurt," Bidybab commented.

"Hush, you." There was a loud click as Bidybab's arm was finally pushed back into its socket. "There, does that feel right?"

Bidybab flexed her arm and fingers. "Yeah, thanks, Circus."

"Oh wow, you actually succeeded in fixing the little demon."

"Hey! I am not a little demon. If anything, I'm a little satan."

"That isn't any better."

"I know." Bidybab giggled jumping off the table and knocking the toolbox off.

The ringleader stared at the fallen tools and sighed, rolling her eyes before bending down to pick all that shit up.

Foxy hopped off the table to help.

It only took Foxy about... three whole seconds? Maybe less, to start making somewhat vague comments about how they could pick up the tools faster if they had another friend to help.

Baby simply rolled her eyes at his failed attempts at being subtle.

But who knows?

Maybe she would actually listen to Foxy's advice for once.


End file.
